We all have to negotiate at work. Sometimes the need to convince someone else to your point of view is over a salary increase. It might be with a clueless user over the software design you proposed, or the team lead who wants to incorporate a different code library. It might be just to get [...]
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Less Process, More Discipline
by Charlie Martin | Comments
It started, as these things often do, with someone coming into my office. We’re close to shipping a product after a long struggle with all the usual issues – hardware difficulties, operating system bugs, personnel changes – but we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel without the chug-chug of an [...]
That Job Sucked, But You’ll Never Tell
by Esther Schindler | Comments
Carrie used to work for a small team in a large company. For the first year or so, it was her dream job. The people she worked with were smart and creative; she was given the freedom to work on projects that mattered to her; even the company benefits were great. She felt that she [...]
3 Things Software Developers Can Learn From Prince Fielder and the Home Run Derby
by Esther Schindler | Comments
This year, Major League Baseball tried out a new — and in my view flawed — way to select which eight players would appear in the annual Home Run Derby (part of the All Star festivities). Instead of the players being chosen somewhere offstage, out of the public glare, this year the MLB folks decided [...]
A Call for Strong Opinions in Software Development
by Jason Cohen | Comments
Software frameworks are so opinionated all of a sudden. I love it; we need more of it. The Agile Manifesto was one of the first clear examples of opinionated expression. No hedging, just clear trade-offs, like valuing “working software over comprehensive documentation.” If there’s a question between creating a requirements doc or writing a human [...]
Don’t Be Perfect
by Cameron Laird | Comments
You’re a good quality assurance employee: You’re careful, conscientious, practiced in thinking like an end-user, and imaginative in breaking software. But now, a few of the same qualities that made you successful to this point are holding you back in your career. Most severe is that you aim for perfection. When given an application to [...]
I Like My IT Budget Tight and My Developers Stupid
Yes, you do. Don’t deny it. You like them stupid. You don’t have the budget, and even if you did, you prefer to have them stupid, because if they weren’t stupid, if they went and got a certification or got trained up on, say, the latest SharePoint skills, they’d go get another job. Which (as [...]
What Monty Python Taught Me About the Software Industry
Life imitates art, and vice versa, but the ways in which it does so are sometimes a little surprising. There are a surprising number of parallels between what I’ve experienced working in the technology industry and what we’ve seen in a variety of Monty Python skits. Don’t believe me? Here’s the lessons the computer industry [...]
An Agile Pace
by Tim Ottinger | Comments
Anyone who has been in software long enough recognizes an ongoing need for overtime as a “process smell,” a sign of an organization needing rescue. Once there is a mandate for exceptional, regular, weekly overtime — officially instituting a “death march” project — it is past time to pull in an Agile process consultant. A [...]
